The activists from the National Constitutional Assembly
(NCA), an allianceof civic groups seeking constitutional reform, had not
forewarned the policeabout their protest as required under draconian
security laws.

Douglas Mwonzora, an NCA spokesman, said they had not told
the authoritiesbecause they did not want to be dispersed before they could
begin theprotest, which has happened before.

But the strategy failed.
Mr Mwonzora said several NCA members were beaten aspolice sealed off the
city centre.

Zimbabwe's security laws require protesters to seek police
permission beforestaging peaceful demonstrations. But this is never
grantedand police takeadvantage of any notice given to block venues before
demonstrators assemble.

The NCA activists tried to congregate in Africa
Unity Square in centralHarare - the equivalent of London's Trafalgar Square.
They had planned tomarch to protest against what Mr Mwonzora described as
unmitigatedrepression by the President, Robert Mugabe. But somehow the
police had beeninformed and arrested demonstrators as soon as the first
batch hadassembled.

Those arrested included the NCA's chairman,
Lovemore Madhuku, who has becomeMr Mugabe's chief enemy in the civic society
sector. Before his arrest, MrMadhuku told The Independent that Zimbabweans
were now faced with adifficult choice - either to die quietly of hunger in
their homes or to riskdying in the streets to save Zimbabwe from Mr Mugabe's
tyranny.

In the absence of any help from the international community to
rein in MrMugabe, Mr Madhuku said Zimbabweans had to confront the regime
head on.

The situation in Zimbabwe has worsened in the past week with the
NationalOil Company of Zimbabwe announcing that it no longer has any
fuel.

The fuel shortage has paralysed government departments, including
theambulance service, which can no longer attend accident scenes and to
verysick patients.

Zimbabwean workers have been left with no
alternative but to walk up to 45miles to and from work every
day.

Inflation has reached nearly 500 per cent and hunger is now
hittingZimbabwean urban families hard.

According to one newspaper
report at the weekend, 45 children have died ofmalnutrition in the past few
weeks. Many others are dropping out of schoolbecause of hunger and lack of
school fees.

Mr Mwonzora said the NCA would keep using public protests to
call for a newconstitution for Zimbabwe leading to free and fair elections
and a newgovernment for the country. Despite his policies bringing the
country to itsknees, Mr Mugabe, 79, is not giving up on power. He has blamed
Britain forthe crisis in his country.

Zimbabwe’s government has just reiterated its vow to resist international
pressure to reopen the county’s last non-government newspaper, the Daily News.
Last month, the newspaper was shut down under a law that restricts freedom of
press. Zimbabwe has been slipping down the drain for about four years now, but
it was not always like this.

When I first arrived in Zimbabwe in October
1999 as a Peace Corps volunteer, Zimbabwe was a backpacker’s paradise. There
were cheap, clean youth hostels everywhere, huge nature reserves with Lions and
Hippos and friendly locals. With a relatively low crime rate and a rapidly
developing tourist industry and infrastructure, the country was well on its way
to becoming one of sub-Saharan Africa’s few success stories.

That was
1999. But just four years later, Zimbabwe has descended into a state of
unprecedented lawlessness, plummeting GDP and severe food shortages.

Beginning a few months before the parliamentary elections of the spring
of 2000, President Robert Mugabe began recruiting destitute youth to invade
white-owned farms throughout Zimbabwe. Desperate to cling to power amid
increasing discontent with his kleptocratic rule, he gave his adolescent
recruits full license to wreak havoc in the countryside by invading local
white-owned farms. His professed intention was to allocate the confiscated
properties back to the landless black majority. Little did many of the would-be
recipients realize that most of these farms would be doled out to Mugabe’s
relatives and ministers, as well as to himself.

White farmers were
threatened, severely beaten and a few of them were murdered. A white farmer
outside of Harare was allegedly forced to sing songs praising President Mugabe
while a war veteran held a gun to the head of the farmer’s five-year-old son.

Just before I left Peace Corps Zimbabwe in July 2000, the city of Harare
had metamorphosized. The streets were now empty and devoid of tourists.
Restaurants lost business and Internet cafes were empty. Child beggars, who used
to subside on what they begged from tourists, became increasingly aggressive and
followed me wherever I went, shouting obscenities in English when I did not give
them money. There were daily gasoline shortages. Cars waited in lines several
blocks long for hours to get a few drops of fuel. Trucks could not deliver food
to stores. Stores went broke. People went hungry.

Standing at a bus stop
one day, a tired old woman with a baby in her arms asked me for money. We began
talking. “When you go back to your country”, she said, “tell them we are
suffering.”

Things got worse. A friend of mine, another Peace Corps
volunteer who lived near the Zambian border, was pulled off of a bus and
interrogated by a group of drunken thugs who had put up a roadblock near a
white-owned tobacco farm. They insisted he was the son of a local white farmer.
Only when several other passengers intervened was he let go.

Violence in
the rural areas increased. Mugabe’s supporters murdered a white farmer right in
front of a township police station while local officers allegedly stood idly by.
Months earlier I had passed by this station on my way to visit another Peace
Corps volunteer and asked a very friendly police officer with a wide smile for
directions. It is difficult for me to imagine this same man standing helplessly
by while observing the murder of an innocent civilian. Maybe he feared for his
own life, demonstrating an ineptitude that reflected the helplessness felt by
the entire country.

Not only did the political violence begin to
increase, but so did the overall rate of violent crime, particularly against
whites and foreigners. Two friends of mine were attacked in broad daylight
outside of a crowded suburban shopping center in a wealthy Harare suburb. In the
same neighborhood, a man driving a pickup truck stuck his hand out the window
and grabbed the wrist of a British backpacker I knew. He dragged her two blocks
down a city street on her back. In front of several onlookers, the truck finally
stopped as two men jumped out of the back and kicked her in the head before
taking all of her belongings. She spent the next two days in the hospital and
the next month with bandages wrapped around her entire upper torso. Again, the
police did nothing.

Several border countries endorsed the outcome of the
March 2002 elections that Mugabe won by threats and violence against the
opposition and its supporters. There may be many reasons for this, such as
reluctance among African leaders to criticize an elder statesman. But another
more ominous possibility is that leaders of some of the surrounding states might
not quite disagree with his tactics. Click here
to send feedback to the author

Matthew Rusling is a native of Philadelphia, PA . He graduated 1999
from the University of Connecticut, with a Bachelors in German Studies. During
his junior year he spent a year studying in Heidelberg, Germany. A few months
after finishing college, he served in the US Peace Corps in Zimbabwe. After his
group was evacuated due to politically motivated violence in Zimbabwe's rural
areas, he returned to the US. He then worked for a small internet company in New
York City. Currently, he is a freelance journalist and teaches English to
business executives in South Korea.

He said his reasons would be given in a full
written judgment to be releasedlater this week.

However, it does not
mean that the opposition Movement for DemocraticChange's candidate in the
constituency would automatically take his place.The judge said that "no-one
else is entitled to be elected." Lawyers said itmeant that a by-election
would have to be held to fill the vacancy.

The MDC came close to
unseating Mugabe's government by winning 57 out of 120elected parliamentary
seats, although Zanu-PF secured a comfortable marginof seats through a legal
provision that allowed Mugabe to choose another 30seats for the 150-seat
parliamentary chamber.

The MDC challenged 39 of the constituencies won by
Zanu-PF.

The party won eight of its petitions and another eight have been
dismissed.The remainder are either still stuck in the judicial system or the
MDCcandidates have withdrawn their challenges.

However, lawyers said
the MDC's court victories, including Wednesday's, madelittle real difference
to the balance of seats in parliament. None of theeight Zanu-PF MPs who had
their seats annulled have had to leave parliamentbecause they had appealed
against the decision to the Supreme Court.

Despite electoral law that
demands that election challenges be heard "as amatter of urgency," not one
of the appeals have been heard by the SupremeCourt since the first judgement
was given 31 months ago.

The health delivery
system in Zimbabwe is declining as medical personnelleave the country in
search of better working conditions and more money. Theexodus of nurses and
doctors and other professionals from Zimbabwe foreconomic reasons is
accelerating, with most of those leaving going toBritain, the country's
former colonial master.An increasing number of Zimbabweans are desperate to
escape their country'sharsh economic conditions, and London is a favorite
destination.

A senior doctor who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity
said juniornurses and doctors in the state medical system see no future in
Zimbabwebecause their salaries are so low. The doctor said that in Zimbabwe,
theycannot afford a car or even think of getting married.

The doctor,
who works at one of the country's biggest hospitals, saysdeliveries of
essential drugs and supplies are erratic. She told VOA, "Weend up doing
half, or none, of the operations we would do under
normalcircumstances."

In an effort to stem the exodus of medical
practitioners, the governmentintroduced a bonding system a few-years ago.
Under that arrangement, doctorsand nurses undertake to work for the
government for a certain period afterfinishing their training.

But,
the doctor said, doctors and nurses simply buy themselves out of
thecontracts and leave anyway.

The Zimbabwe government has resorted
to luring retired nurses back intoservice and recruiting doctors and other
health personnel from Cuba and theDemocratic Republic of the Congo. But
these measures have fallen short ofaddressing the situation.

The
president of the Zimbabwe Medical Association, Dr. Billy Rigava, blamedthe
healthcare crisis on the exodus of medical practitioners and a lack ofdrugs
and medical supplies, which the country cannot buy because of itsshortage of
foreign currency.

Dr. Rigava told the South African Sunday Times that if
it were not for theprivate hospitals, the country would be facing what he
described as acatastrophe. The majority of Zimbabweans cannot afford private
medical care.The AIDS pandemic has further strained the nation's limited
resources.Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV infection rates in the world,
andfigures show that about 2,000 people die of AIDS-related illnesses
everyweek.

In the early years of independence, President Robert
Mugabe was widelypraised for ensuring that primary health care was available
to all. Now,after 23 years of his rule, it has joined the long list of
failing or failedservices in Zimbabwe.

Mr. Mugabe blames external
forces for the decay, including the formercolonial power, Britain, which he
accuses of stealing medical personnel fromZimbabwe.

Chief ReporterZanu-PF Manicaland provincial executive has
agreed to co-opt former ZimbabweUnity Movement leader Mr Edgar Tekere into
the ruling party’s provincialleadership to enable him to attend the party’s
annual conference in Masvingoin December.

Zanu-PF party’s secretary
for external affairs, Cde Didymus Mutasa, who isalso a Politburo member from
the province, confirmed that Mr Tekere hadaccepted an invitation to rejoin
the party.

"We want him back and he has already accepted the invitation
to rejoin theparty. We have written to the party’s secretary for
administration, CdeEmmerson Mnangagwa, who accepted the province’s request,"
said Cde Mutasa.

He said there was a likelihood of Mr Tekere bouncing
back into theprovincial party structures in time for the annual conference
in December.

Cde Mutasa said there were many people who were expelled
from the party orabandoned it but later rejoined and were now holding
Cabinet positions.

"There is nothing peculiar about Tekere. We have
already started workingwith him and he is quite a familiar figure at our
offices in Mutare," CdeMutasa said.

Contacted for comment, Mr Tekere
confirmed that he had been approached bysenior Zanu-PF officials in the
province and had no qualms with rejoiningZanu-PF.

"Yes, all those
people you are mentioning have talked to me but at thismoment I can’t say
much because it’s still on an unofficial level," he said.

Mr Tekere was
expelled from Zanu-PF in 1989 for his public utterances whichwere not in
line with the party’s policies.

Nicknamed Twoboy in 1947 by schoolmates
at St Faith’s Mission near Rusapebecause of his rough tackling in a game of
football, Mr Tekere has alwaysbeen shrouded in controversy before and after
independence.

Soon after independence in 1980, he and seven bodyguards
appeared at theHigh Court in a high profile trial facing charges of
murdering Mr GeraldWilliam Adams. Mr Adams was shot at a farm near
Harare.

Mr Tekere and his bodyguards were acquitted by the High
Court.

The maverick politician was one of the architects of the
liberation strugglethat brought independence in 1980.

Mr Tekere was
involved in the recruiting of Zanu cadres for the war untilApril 1975 when
he crossed into Mozambique with President Mugabe.

He was a member of the
Zanu-PF delegation at the Lancaster House talks andreturned to Harare for
the general elections in 1980.

He was the first Minister of Man-power,
Planning and Development, a ministryset up to accelerate training to ensure
that black Zimbabweans becameself-sufficient.

Court
ReportersPROCEEDINGS at the Mbare, Chitungwiza and Harare magistrates’
courts wereyesterday disrupted after the Zimbabwe Prison Services failed to
bringprisoners to court due to the shortage of fuel.

An official at
the Rotten Row courts said Harare Remand Prison and ChikurubiMaximum
Security Prison vehicles had run out of fuel.

"This is the second day
now. There is no fuel. Prisoners have to be remandedin absentia," the
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.

The official said
the situation was now desperate as they had on severaloccasions failed to
bring prisoners because sometimes they did not haveescorts.

The court
building, which is usually packed, was deserted, with only a fewpeople
milling around.

The two regional courts, which were sitting, had to
postpone some of thecases that were supposed to be finalised while cases set
to commenceyesterday failed to kick off.

It was the same with the
provincial courts, which also deferred cases tolater dates.

Another
official said this would further increase the backlog of cases atRotten Row
courts, which are also facing a severe shortage of magistrates.

"There is
a severe shortage of magistrates and the failure by the ZPS tobring
prisoners would worsen the backlog of cases," said the official.

At the
Chitungwiza Magistrates’ Court, business was also low, with a fewcases being
heard after the ZPS also failed to bring in prisoners.

On Monday, the ZPS
also failed to bring prisoners to the courts and trialshad to be
postponed.

A prisons official who spoke to The Herald on condition of
anonymity saidtheir vehicles were queuing for fuel at the Central Mechanical
Department.

The situation was also the same at Mbare courts with a few
prisonersappearing.

A prisons officer said for the past two weeks,
the ZPS was not bringingprisoners from both Chikurubi Maximum Security
Prison and Harare RemandPrison.

By Lovemore MataireAN
estimated 100 000 tonnes of maize is lying idle in Mashonaland WestProvince
owing to lack of transport to ferry it to the Grain MarketingBoard,
prompting the Zimbabwe Farmers Union to approach the army for trucksto move
the grain.

ZFU vice president Mr Wilfanos Mashingaidze said not less than
100 000tonnes of maize grain was at homes of communal farmers in the
province.

He said this was discovered during a ZFU tour of the province
to check onfarmers’ preparations for the coming season.

Each farmer
told ZFU officials of the amount of maize they were failing todeliver to the
GMB because of lack of transport.

Mr Mashingaidze said farmers in
Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Centralwere also failing to transport their
maize to the GMB, but the problem wasmost prevalent in Mashonaland
West.

"Something must seriously be done to ensure that the maize is
delivered tothe GMB otherwise it will just rot.

"The maize is more
than enough to fill the nearest depot at Makwichi and cango a long way in
averting hunger at a time when the Government is importinggrain at a very
expensive price," said Mr Mashingaidze.

He said his organisation had
already appealed to the Government through thetaskforce on Inputs
Procurement and Distribution for army trucks to ferrythe grain to the
market.

A GMB official yesterday said they were aware of the transport
problems thatwere being faced by farmers in outlying areas of the
country.

The official said the GMB had so far collected more than 200 000
tonnes ofmaize and was carrying out a mopping up exercise to collect the
remaininggrain.

"I think you will appreciate that just like any other
organisation in thecountry we are also facing fuel problems. Trucks are
lined up ready tocollect the grain but we don’t have enough fuel," said the
official.

Mr Mashingaidze said farmers in Kapiri, Kadunga, Kazangare,
Deve, Karuru,Chundu, Nyadza, Vhuti, Sengwe and Chidamoyo were the most
affected.

He said the failure to transport the grain to the market had
disillusionedfarmers most of whom were supplied with inputs by the
Government lastseason.

"The farmers are not able to buy any inputs
for this season, which hasalready started, because they have not received
any returns from last year’sproduce.

"There is no incentive for them
to prepare for this season when their grainhas not yet been collected," Mr
Mashinga-idze said.

He said the collection of the grain could save the
Government a lot of fundsas it had invested a lot in the farmers by giving
them inputs.

Most farmers, he said, had not built secure storage
facilities for hugestocks as they expected to sell to the GMB.

He
said a manager at the GMB’s Makwichi depot had told them that the depotwas
incapacitated by lack of transport.

The GMB recently said maize
deliveries had improved after the announcementby the Government of the new
producer prices of maize and wheat.

The response by farmers to the new
maize producer price was immediate.

However, the major problem faced by
farmers in delivering maize to the GMBremained that of transport because of
the shortage of fuel.

The Government has increased the producer price of
maize from $130 000 atonne to $300 00 a tonne for the 2003/2004 marketing
season.

The producer price of wheat was also increased from $150 000 a
tonne to $400000 a tonne.

HARARE -
Zimbabwe's farmers facing a crippling fuel shortage have appealedto the
military to help transport to market more than 100,000 tonnes ofmaize
harvested some six months ago, state media said today.

Zimbabwe Farmers
Union (ZFU) vice president Wilfanos Mashingaidze said thegrain was
discovered in several rural villages, some 200 kilometresnortheast of
Harare.

He warned that the maize would rot unless it was collected
immediately.

The appeal came amid UN humanitarian reports of a worsening
food crisis inthe southern African country where stocks have been exhausted
in mostdistricts.

An estimated 5.5 million Zimbabweans will require
emergency food aid byearly next year, out of a population of 11
million.

Maize is a controlled crop and can only be moved by or with
specialpermission of the country's state-owned Grain Marketing Board
(GMB).

An official of the GMB was quoted by the state-run Herald paper as
admittingthat the organisation's operations had been hard hit by the
critical fuelshortage affecting most sectors of Zimbabwe's
economy.

Zimbabwe has experienced shortages of petroleum-based fuel since
1999 whenthe country started running short of foreign exchange to import
fuel.

Countries such as Libya that had come to Zimbabwe's rescue under
specialbarter trade agreements turned off the fuel supply taps after Harare
failedto honour its side of the deal.

The fuel shortage has in recent
weeks grounded thousands of public commuterbuses, stranding hundreds of
thousands of workers.

Last week the country's railways suspended commuter
train services for afew days due to lack of diesel.

The World Food
Programme (WFP) early this month said it had received only aquarter of the
funds it is seeking to feed millions of starving people insouthern Africa,
most of them in Zimbabwe.

For many the real enemy in Zimbabwe is Zanu PF; for
others it is theMbeki/Mugabe alliance; for others it is the wishy washiness
of the donorcommunity; for others it may be the MDC or the British
imperialists. Itmay surprise some if I say that none of these are the real
enemy. The realenemy is corruption.

Transparency International
ranked Zimbabwe 43rd of 133 countries in 1998.By 2000 it had moved down to
45th. Then in 2002 is plummeted to 71. Thelatest report sees Zimbabwe
fallen to 106.

There are a number of factors involved with corruption. I
believe they arejust symptoms of the sickness - but as symptoms they are
there to see andare measurable to one degree or another (so long as there
are honest peopleout there measuring them). Some of the main symptoms of
corruption withina country are:

· Lack of involvement with civic
society or a political opposition.· Restrictions of a free independent
media.· The selective access to information controlled by "the State".·
The lack of judicial independence.· The partisan approach of police and
other armed forces.· The passing of unconstitutional laws.· The partisan
control of teachers and the youth and children.· The "nationalisation" or
undue interference by the State with privateenterprise.

Nobody can
agree that these symptoms of corruption are not prevalent inZimbabwe today.
They lead to a climate of paranoid fear and of politicalpatronage. Much of
the debate recently on the Open Letters Forum hascentred around which
farmers are "dealing". This form of corruptioninvolves signing away bits of
land to appease the oppressor; paying offofficials in the same cause;
enforced assistance to the new "owners" withploughing, etc; bringing in Zanu
PF heavyweights into their businesses forthe sake of self preservation;
paying off "protection rackets" within theparty, etc. We all know that it's
being done and we've seen the fat catsget fatter on it. In some communities
it's even talked about openly as thenorm now.

Corruption and
patronage have got a stranglehold grip and slowly,systematically the
lifeblood of the nation is being cut off.

But these too are just symptoms
of corruption.

Corruption itself is something deeper; something far more
personal.Corruption is an individual choice.

Every society, race,
group or individual has the propensity to becomecorrupt. As the propensity
and opportunities increase so the trustdecreases, and so systems have to be
put in place to reduce it. Ananti-corruption system though is only as good
as the people who are runningit and the temptation or fear levels put their
way.

When all is said and done the real enemy is the corruption within
each oneof us. A corrupt man, group or party will only get away with as
much as heor they are allowed to get away with by those around. The less
integritythere is in those around, the more corruption forces its way into
thehearts of the individuals in the society we exist in. Once a critical
massof corrupt hearts have been established the road to deteriorating
livingconditions, civil strife, genocide and civil war is often a quick
one.

Zimbabwe is surely moving fast towards the establishment of a
critical massof corrupt hearts. People who can't say "NO". Men with
integrity, whenthe pressure comes, are becoming harder to find. They would
rather bow;appease; stand idly by for the sake of self-preservation and
dishonestgain. Once the shoot of corruption is established it tends to grow
veryquickly. The brakes are off. The train smash is coming.

In
Genesis 6 verse 11 it says "Now the Earth was corrupt in God's sight andwas
full of violence. God saw how corrupt the Earth had become for all
thepeople on Earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, "I am
goingto put an end to all people for the Earth is filled with violence
becauseof them". The first murder, that of Abel by his brother Cain,
hadescalated amongst the world's people into something endemic.

The
history of the world continues to repeat itself. As corruption growsthe
people either destroy themselves or get destroyed. People becomecorrupt,
often for the sake of self-preservation, and end upself-destructing. That's
the sad irony of where we are in Zimbabwe today.Many continue to defend
their positions in the system of corruption andpatronage as they dig their
pits deeper.

Zimbabwe needs something far more that anti-corruption
commissions; truthand justice commissions; MDC governments and the like.
Zimbabwe needshonest men, and right now they're a scarce commodity. Only
God can bring aman back from the brink; but before that a choice has to be
made - thechoice to repent of the past. That choice is not just for some -
the verybad ones - it's for every single one of us however self-righteous we
mightfeel.

The following is an example of why we are still in Zimbabwe - because
wehave an awesome future generation!!

On Friday night our son Bruce,
and two of his friends were involved in aroad accident. The driver and
passenger fortunately had seat belts on andonly the driver sustained
lacerations on his right arm. The passenger wasnot injured, and in spite of
the shock kept cool and calm. Bruce wassleeping in the back and was thrown
out. Judging by the state of his back,leg and elbows he gave the tarmac a
run for its money. The back of hishead required suturing and it appears
that he was unconscious for a shorttime after "landing". We thank God for
their lives. We also thank God forthe amazing response from their mates.
Within a few minutes about 30 kidswere on the scene, not going hysterical,
but quietly getting on with thejob at hand.

One of the boys (from St.
Johns School) had done a MARS course and had hismedical kit with him. He
immobilised Bruce's head and neck in case ofspinal injury, then attended to
the other injuries and called for a MARSAmbulance. They then followed the
Ambulance to the Avenues Clinic tosupport their injured mates until family
arrived.

Out of every negative comes a great positive!! I believe that
we have inZimbabwe, the best youth in the world - they are well-mannered,
hardworking, empathetic, kind, considerate and very sensible. What more
couldwe want in our future generation?

I hope that this letter will
encourage more youth at schools to take theMARS Basic course and in so doing
be able to do what the St. Johns youngman did for our son.

I am back again and I wish to start by saying that if
I have offendedanyone with my literary ramblings then I unreservedly
apologize. Myintention all along has been to spark debate amongst the
farmers, we allwant to see them recover from their ordeals, lick their
wounds,re-establish their rights and become better and stronger in the
future,whether or not they wish to stay in Zimbabwe.

An integral part
of any democracy is that people who hold divergent viewsare encouraged to
express those views and debate them. In a few of thereplies, it appears that
some people wish that I would not express my viewson the grounds that I
might offend a portion of the community. Inparticular I would like to take
Michael Chingoka to task on some of thepoints he makes in his reply. 1. He
states that some of the opposing viewsexpressed are "Fighting amongst the
White Zimbabweans", I contend that thisis not fighting but normal expression
of different opinions that should beexpressed on a daily basis in any
functioning democracy.

2. Michael infers that the MDC is a "white" party,
it is not, it is onlythe black people of Zimbabwe that have the ability to
effect change ofgovernment in this country, The whites are politically
irrelevant BUT! Manyof us are very vocal in condemning Mugabe and his
abuses.

3. He also says that we should not be aggressive towards Mugabe.
Since whenhas standing up for your rights become aggression? Why should you
beconciliatory towards the person who has stolen something from you. (In
thiscase ZANU-PF and Mugabe). What is Michael's suggestion? Do we just
rollover and let the thugs do what they want? I say that the owner of
anyproperty, land or otherwise has every right to that property and he has
theright to redress in the courts if someone takes that property away
fromhim. Standing up for one's legal rights can hardly be construed as
eitherbeing aggressive or confrontational.

4. If Black Zimbabweans
feel that the Land was stolen from them, theinternational courts are there
for them to reclaim that land from thepeople who stole that land from them
originally. Why do they not try toclaim recompense from the British
Government by virtue of the fact that theBritish South Africa Company who
were acting under a mandate granted byQueen Victoria in 1890 dispossessed
them of the land.

What is certain is that ZANU-PF with their band of
connected PublicServants, Warlords and Soldiers cannot by force just help
themselves toprivate property as they are currently doing. The Western
Democracies willnot recognize a government brought to power through flawed
elections orgovernment sponsored murder and barbarity: and nor should they.
Whatsanctions have been put on Zimbabwe anyway?

1. The international
banks will not lend money to Mugabe because he and hismates just steal
it.

2. The democracies of the world do not want Mugabe, his cronies and
theirdependents coming to their countries spending the money that they
havestolen.

Are these really tough on the people of Zimbabwe? Do
they have any effecton the ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe at
all?

Deliberate suppression of the aspirations of the majority should
never betolerated, they were not tolerated when perpetrated by Ian Smith so
whyshould the democratic countries of the West tolerate Mugabe doing the
same?

Mugabe has destroyed in 23 years what it took 90 years to build all
in thename of liberation.

He has gifted his people with worse
grinding poverty than was imaginable inSmith's years.

I challenge
Michael Chingoka to point out any part of Zimbabwe society thatis better off
now than it was in 1980. Any of the following? Health,Education, Employment,
Roads, Tourism, Environment, Agriculture.

Finally Democracy?

Do
you think that the murder of Talent Mabika and the scores of MDCactivists
who have been murdered is democracy at work?

Mugabe has educated most of
his people up to Form 2 level, but then expectsthem to pick up a badza and
toil in the fields. As I have said before,these poor people have been
desperately trying to educate their children sothat they can get off the
land. Now they cannot even afford to feed oreducate themselves. In the
Kadoma, Shamva, Shurugwe and many other areas,highly skilled electricians,
welders and farmers are forced to spend monthson end digging gold reefs with
their bare hands just to earn enough to putsadza on the table for their
families. Even then they are forced to pay a50% tithe to self proclaimed,
politically connected petty warlords whocontrol the Gold trade and have
become unimaginably wealthy. This hasnothing to do with White Zimbabweans,
it is slavery being perpetrated bythe very people who claim to be the
Liberators of the Black Zimbabweans.

The fiasco last weekend in Kadoma of
the ruling party trying to select acandidate to contest the Kadoma Central
by-election was obscenity at itsworst. Bands of drugged or drunk youths
driving around screaming andshouting and spraying the walls with the name of
a candidate who has paidthem to do it. The choice ZANU-PF gave to the people
of Kadoma was between2 people.

· An illiterate thug who calls himself
"Chou en Lai" who controls all theaforementioned gold trading in Kadoma and
who has stolen at least 2 farms.

· An equally brutal thug who owns
grinding mills and a bakery and was oneof the favored few (until it ran
out!) allowed to purchase GMB maize at$540 per 50kg bag and sell it to the
povo at $22,500 for a 50kg bag ofmeal. Who incidentally also owns 2
farms.

These 2 fine pillars of democracy were the best that ZANU-PF could
come upwith to present to the people of Kadoma to represent them in
parliament.

What Africa needs to learn (and especially ZANU-PF) is that
the West doesnot need Africa. In fact they do not give a toss about what
happens here.In many cases they wish that Africa could disappear
altogether.

One of Michael's points really rankles, He says that I am the
one holdingout the begging bowl?? Get real! The starvation that stalks this
country isa wholly African problem. The White farmers are not the ones
holding outthe begging bowl, hundreds of them have created new lives in
othercountries and are quite comfortable.

Why should the rich western
countries bail out corrupt, brutal regimes?Mugabe pours insults on Britain,
the USA and anyone who criticizes ZANU-PFand then he is the one who holds
out the begging bowl because his peopleare starving. There are certain
agreements that were signed not so long agocalled the "Harare Declaration"
and the "Abuja Agreement". Mugabe tore upthose bits of paper before the ink
was dry and never had any intention ofsticking to them.

How will
history look at Mugabe and his cronies?

When they are finally toppled and
their power broken, the truth will comeout.

When these excesses are
finally documented, I guarantee that they will beviewed as one of the most
brutal regimes on the African continent. Mugabeand his henchmen will have to
find a very quiet place to hide. They will belooked upon with the same
disgust that Amin, Mobutu and Bokassa are.

Half of the problem in
Zimbabwe is that individuals who wish to expresstheir views are brutally
oppressed. Another thing is that people likeMichael Chingoka have a massive
chip on their shoulder which manifestsitself whenever Race, Colonialism, or
Liberation are mentioned. Until thatchip is removed and we are able to
debate contentious issues as adultswithout resorting to personal insults we
will not move forward as a nation.

Unless the Zimbabwean people lose that
"Ndipo" attitude and take theirdestiny away from their oppressors they are
doomed to poverty. The West iscomfortable to have the poor Africans begging
at their doorstep for food asit gives them leverage to tell them what to do.
They are now unable to tellthe likes of Taiwan, China or India how to run
their countries because theyhave become so economically strong that they are
not dependent on the westin any way.

I guess that I have got carried
away, and lost the plot. The whole point isthat debate is good for the soul
and that no matter what names anyone callsme I will express my
views!

John
Kinnaird.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinionsof the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justicefor
Agriculture.

A
few months ago a farmer responded to the Governments call in the Heraldfor
compensation. He was offered Z$29 million over 7 years for his
farmimprovements. 25% paid when handing over the title deeds, 25% in two
yearstime, and the remaining 50% five years later !!

Building costs
at the moment are in the region of Z$1million/square meterso the amount
offered may just cover their double garage ! A sink mix tapthat was
Z$4700,00 two years ago, now sells at Z$220,000 !!

What would the last
remaining 50% be worth in seven years time and whatwould it buy !?

Eighteen months after the
main opposition party in Zimbabwe, the Movementfor Democratic Change (MDC),
initially sought to have the March 2002presidential election declared
invalid, the country's high court is due tohear the case early next month.
It is likely to be a long, drawn-out casethat could become part of a deal
between the MDC and the ruling Zanu PFparty, if one is ultimately reached.
But the current strained politicalclimate gives little indication that such
a deal is imminent. Last weekendsecurity guards at the MDC headquarters in
Harare were shot and the MDC saysits members continue to face prosecution
and intimidation. MDC spokesmanPaul Themba-Nyathi said yesterday that the
party would consider withdrawingthe case if it were to reach an agreement
with the ruling party that couldensure free and fair presidential elections.
Zanu PF broke off talks withthe opposition party when the original petition
to have the electiondeclared invalid was brought. Themba-Nyathi said that
while there werecontacts with Zanu PF, brokered by church groups and the
South African highcommission, there were no formal talks. He said the
contacts were aimed atnarrowing the topics to be discussed should formal
talks begin.

While the party's shadow minister for legal and
constitutional affairs,David Coltart, had concerns about the independence of
the judiciary, he saidit was still important that the party place before the
public what hedescribed as overwhelming evidence of a rigged election. The
party said ithad hundreds of witnesses who could give evidence of election
abuses,including voters being turned away from the polls and the stuffing
ofballots. Coltart said nearly 30 of the party's election agents
wereabducted. All of them were in constituencies where the MDC was expected
towin a majority of the vote. Mugabe won 1,6-million votes and the
MDCcandidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, gained 1,2-million votes. A decision by
thecourt to declare the elections invalid would embarrass observer
missionsincluding those from SA and what was then the Organisation for
AfricanUnity, now the African Union, that declared the poll substantially
free andfair. Election observer missions from the Commonwealth, the Southern
AfricanDevelopment Community parliamentary forum and the Norwegian
observermission, said it was neither free nor fair. The European Union's
observermission was not allowed into the country as Zanu PF banned its
British,German, Dutch and Swedish members.

At the five-day
hearing starting on November 3 the court will hear the legalarguments from
MDC lawyers, led by South African advocate Jeremy Gauntlett,as to why the
election was invalid. Should the court make a finding infavour of the MDC, a
fresh election will have to be held within three monthsof the ruling. In the
second part of the case the MDC intends to presentevidence of the violence
around the polls and the stuffing of ballots.Although Mugabe has tightened
his control of the judiciary over the past 18months, the MDC is convinced
any judge who decides against it will have togive a ruling that will not
stand up to scrutiny. Since the election theparty has been struggling to
obtain copies of the voters roll and ballotpapers that were used in the
election. Despite a series of judgments in itsfavour the MDC has been unable
to obtain these. Coltart said the recordswould bolster the MDC's case, but
even without them there was sufficientevidence that Zanu PF committed
substantial fraud in the election.

Zimbabwe's annual tobacco
auctions used to have a holiday atmosphere -boisterous families, the nasal
droning of the auctioneers, internationalbuyers fingering the contents of
the bales. At the end of this sellingseason a gloomy mood hung over the
cavernous auction floors. Just two small,solemn groups of white farmers
breakfasted at the cafe overlooking thelines. Out among the bales a shabbily
dressed black peasant farmer and hiswife argued with an official. Peasant
farmers twice brought auctions to ahalt during the past season in mass
protests against the Z$800 - US$1exchange rate that the government imposed
on the proceeds of sales, whichaveraged US2.26c/kg. This did not even match
the official Z$824 - US$1exchange rate, and was vastly below the Z$7 000 -
US$1 "parallel" or blackmarket rate at which farmers have to buy imported
inputs such as tractorspares. State radio, obsessed with racial paranoia,
accused the peasantfarmers of being a front for disgruntled whites.
Traditionally, Virginiaflue-cured tobacco was the country's largest single
export, with goldtrailing second. The biggest recorded crop, in 2000, was
237 million kg andfetched US$600 million. Earnings from tobacco exports paid
for imports ofpetrol, diesel, paraffin and aviation fuel. Even in the
searing drought yearof 1981, some 1 500 large-scale commercial growers
managed to produce 87million kg which fetched US$141 million. This year, a
crop of a mere 78,5mkg was sold for US $191 million, although weather was
favourable andproduction had been opened up to thousands of peasant farmers.
Peasants grew12 million kg and may double this in the next two years, but
they say theyneed an exchange rate of Z$7 500 - US $1 exchange rate to break
even.

As the auctions drew to an end, details leaked of a
confidential audit onthe so-called "fast track land reform" performed by
Charles Utete, recentlySecretary to the Cabinet, a fanatical Mugabe
loyalist, and himself therecipient of one of the farms seized from 5 000
farmers over the past threeturbulent years. Utete’s objectivity is thus
questionable. Sources say thatin the report presented to Mugabe last month,
Utete blamed the failure ofthe programme on the economic crisis in Zimbabwe,
rather than acknowledgingthe economic crisis is a result of the land
seizures. He said the seizureswere necessary because "white farmers
routinely resorted to legal action toprotect their ownership rights". He
ignored the fact that Mugabe abandonedthe peaceful, internationally-funded
reform plan agreed with the U.N.Development Programme at a conference in
Harare in 1998. And Utete blamedEuropean Union and US "sanctions" for drying
up of investment and exportrevenues. That’s the favourite Mugabe
explanation. However, he did admitthat Mugabe's oft-repeated claim that 300
000 black families have beensuccessfully resettled is untrue. No more than
134 000 have receivedidentifiable plots or farms, and 40 percent of these
have failed to takethem up.

In addition, 50 000 families were
supposed to receive larger A2 commercialholdings. But, Utete reported, only
7 260 did. These, say Mugabe's critics,included recipients of the prime
estates seized by members of the elite andtheir relatives. Some of them
seized farms with the aid of violent thugs andmade a quick profit by
marketing the evicted owners’ crops, includingtobacco, as their own. Many
hold top state jobs, including military andpolice chiefs, or own businesses
linked to Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. Utetesaid farms were seized to alleviate
poverty - as opposed to the view ofcritics that land reform was a cover for
violent intimidation by a corruptand incompetent regime. There is less
disagreement about the result. TheFinancial Gazette, now run by a consortium
of pro-Mugabe businessmen,reported: "swathes of productive land were left
lying idle...this not onlycompromised the country's food security situation
but also had a negativeeffect on the feeble economy." Oliver Gawe, spokesman
for the ZimbabweTobacco Association, which says it is non-political, said
the new growerswanted security. "They ask to be left alone when they plant a
crop (ahectare costs up to Z$30 million to bring to reaping stage) yet they
areunder a lot of political pressure still." Economics consultant
JohnRobertson put it less coyly: farmers, including the few hundred
survivingwhite tobacco growers who have committed themselves to a further
season, arestill being summarily thrown off. Robertson says only 30 million
kg may beproduced in the coming season. Gawe hopes for 60 million kg and
saysZimbabwe must restore a crop of at least 80 million kg by 2004-5 to
maintaininternational buyers' interest. "If we don't, that could spell doom
for theindustry," Gawe concedes.

So why has production fallen
calamitously under the fast track land reformwhich Mugabe and Utete claim
has been a resounding success? "It was achapter of unfulfilled promises,"
says Jerry Davidson, chief executive ofthe Commercial Farmers Union. Apart
from broken pledges that white farmerswould each be left with at least one
farm, incoming black recipients did notget free ploughing, soil preparation,
seed and fertiliser. "There was badplanning and bad implementation," adds
Davidson. "People were just dumped inthe bush where there is no water and no
housing. They have no means ofaccessing the development capital to open up
the land and get it working forthem." Even the wealthy recipients of A2
model farms all assumed they weregoing to take over a fully running farm, he
added. And even Davidson Mugabe,president of the Indigenous Commercial
Farmers' Union, and a fan of farmseizures, is complaining. He says his 2 000
members - established farmers -were unable to get diesel and seed, adding,
"This has left most of themstranded." Mugabe propagates the fallacy that a
farm or a plot of landrepresents a cash cow for the recipient. However, the
134 000 who wereallocated holdings were not given freehold title. Any
suggestion ofpolitical disloyalty, and party bosses will have their leases
cancelled,regardless of whether they have incurred a Z$30 million overdraft
to grow ahectare of crops. It is, therefore, not just whites who are too
insecure toproduce. It is the same for all - and so the nation goes hungry
and lacksfuel.

Women in sub-Saharan Africa face the highest
maternal mortality rates in theworld, with up to one in 16 women running the
risk of dying in pregnancy orchildbirth, a new study has found.

The
study, conducted by the World Health Organisation, the UN Children'sFund
(UNICEF) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), found that in Angola andMalawi
one in seven women faced the risk of dying due to pregnancy orchildbirth,
compared with one in 2,800 for a woman from a developed region.

In
Zimbabwe, where researchers estimated that one in 16 women were at risk,the
introduction in 1995 of user fees at clinics is thought to have beenpartly
responsible for the high risks associated with childbirth.

Although this policy has been reversed - medical care is free
for pregnantwomen and children under five, and TBA training has been revived
- healthservices had deteriorated due to inadequate funding and training,
Bloemensaid.

"Women would go the clinic and receive poor services,
and so decided to justdo things the way their mothers did - with TBAs." In
addition, Bloemennoted, the per capita allocation for the health sector had
dropped from US$26 in 1991 to $14 in 2001.

"On top of that, there's a
brain drain of health workers moving across theborder, so the services that
are available are not so good.

Zimbabwe's food crisis earlier this year,
which left half the country'spopulation dependent on food aid, also left
many women anaemic and notstrong enough for childbirth. Other causes of
maternal mortality includedwomen bleeding to death during childbirth,
infections not healing andinadequately trained medical staff, especially in
rural health centres, thatwere unable to cope with
complications.

HIV/AIDS had also left many women too weak to fight
infections, or anaemic,Bloemen said. An estimated 33.7 percent of Zimbabwean
adults areHIV-positive.

In Angola, now emerging from three decades of
civil war, researchers foundthat women delayed seeking treatment at the
country's clinics, which wereshort of drugs and trained staff.

"There
are 3.3 million displaced people returning home and, although theyhave got
incredible spirit, they are going to areas that don't haveservices - some
are just ghost towns," said James Elder, UNICEF spokesman
inAngola.

"These new estimates indicate an unacceptably high number
of women dying inchildbirth, and an urgent need for increased access to
emergency obstetriccare, especially in sub-Saharan Africa," UNICEF Executive
Director CarolBellamy said in a statement. "The widespread provision of
emergencyobstetric care is essential if we want to reduce maternal
deaths."